


The Abduction of Persephone

by eedmund



Category: Greek Mythology - Fandom, Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-05 17:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18833044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eedmund/pseuds/eedmund
Summary: Persephone is forced to leave Olympus after the paper gets copies of Apollo’s pictures. But we all know where this story ends...and it isn’t languishing in the mortal realms with mother dearest!This is a speculative attempt to make the Lore and the myth match up!





	1. Persephone: The End is a Beginning

_SPRING GODDESS REACHES FOR THE SUN_

_Like an ivy on a trellis, there’s just no stopping this social climber! Fresh from Hades’ arm, it looks like our little Spring blossom has found someone a little more Sunny to get down and dirty with! Flip to page Gamma for the photo spread! It’s too racy for our front cover!_

—

The rumor of a relationship with Hades had put Persephone’s scholarship on rocky ground. A full spread of grainy, compromising photos in this Sunday’s Oracle? There were not enough mink coats in all the universe to appease Hestia this time.

Worse still, Hestia’s wrath did not end with stripping away her scholarship or ensuring that her shared accomodations with Artemis came to an abrupt end. Persephone had to endure the most mortifying tear down in the history of the gods. She’d been called every foul name in the book and a few that had yet to be added. Oh yes… And after all that, Hestia had called her mother up to Olympus too.

When the mortals of the realms below talked about the wrath of nature, they were talking about her mother. Fruits and wheat and flowers were just half of Demeter’s purview. The other half? Rage. Fierce and rabid and so, so violent. Her rage was not, thankfully, directed at Persephone but with her protective instincts on high, it might as well have been.

That was it for Persephone. Her chance to live and grow away from home was cut short. Her dreams of a future path plotted out by her own choices and her own skills was lost or, rather, stolen. With a wave of a green arm, her mother had sent her home. She was back in the mortal realm — safely tucked away in her very own greenhouse with large, glorious windows that let in all the sun’s mocking light. She was surrounded by everyone of the beauties this underdeveloped world had to offer. The birds sang sweet songs to her day and night. Flowers twisted and bloomed with a vibrancy only the gods could match. 

She had windows so she could see and be seen. 

But she had no doors. 

She had no chance for escape. 

And she had no hope for anything beyond an eternity of serene solitude.

Her pink hand ran up the smooth wall that framed one such window as her tears streaked silently down her face. The sheer quantity she had shed was ruining the spongy green grass that ran across the floors of her sheltered garden. Her grief was salting the earth but she couldn’t find it in her to care that the greens were fading to browns and grays.

She couldn’t bring herself to care about much of anything. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was a tangled mass of pink. The clothing she wore was the same cropped tee and loose fitting slacks she’d been wearing the moment her mother had whisked her out of the heavens three full days ago. 

Dashing the latest run of tears from her cheeks, she twisted her hands into fists and plunged them into her pockets and stilled. Gingerly, she pulled her left fist from her pocket and uncurled it in front of her. A line of magenta blood welled from a thin cut on her hand but that miniscule wound did not hold her attention even for a moment. He attention had instead been captured by the shiny, ebony card that she now clutched.

It read:

KING OF THE UNDERWORLD/GOD OF THE DEAD/GOD OF WEALTH  
Hades/Aidoneus/Dark Zeus/Dis/Plouton/Pluto  
CONTACT / HIT HANDS TO THE GROUND TWICE

She didn’t even think. All the recriminations and dark thoughts flew from her mind and she dropped to the sodden, brown grass floor.

For the first time in days, she did something with her hands that was far more useful than wringing them.

She hit the ground. Twice.


	2. Hades: Should I stay or should I go?

Hades should have missed the whole ordeal. He was not, after all, an Olympian and while he’d check his investments in The Oracle on weekdays when he had a spare moment, the scandal sheets that flew around the heavens on Sundays did not interest him in the least. But when Minthe slithered into the office on Monday morning clutching a day old paper with a smile that ran so wide across her face it could have been cut with a hatchet, he knew what was to follow would not, could not bring him joy.

It was this realization which brought him to his feet and around his desk. He strode toward the terrifying smile and nearly winced. He had almost married this woman. He had almost consigned his future to a person whose greatest joys were bound to his grief. He found himself wondering when he had started defining relationship success by misery endured. 

“Morning Minthe,” he supplied forgoing any efforts to add the ‘good’. 

“Good morning, Hades,” she cooed coiling around him like smoke.

He took a slow step backward, awkwardly adjusted his collar, and, shirking all finesse, blurted out, “This isn’t going to work.” The coiling stopped. It was astonishing how quickly Minthe could move from being all soft curves to sharp angles. “Us, I —uh— mean... I think we both know this isn’t...”

“Us?” Minthe hissed cutting off what was sure to have been a long and useless ramble. “This is about _her,_ isn’t it? Well, I hate to inform you, Sir.” She could pour such an unfathomable amount of scorn into her honorifics that Hades briefly wondered why he hadn’t stationed her closer to the Fields of Punishment. “She’s moved WAY out of your league now,” Minthe continued with a snarl. Much like her happiness fed on tragedy, her smiles could bleed out of her snarls. She almost managed to regain her composure as her tone sweetened to add, “Why throw away a good thing?” Leaning in, she start to coil around him again. “Why throw away _our_ good thing? Especially when there’s nothing else there for you?”

But Hades wasn’t feeling it today. His decisions, once made, held firm. “It’s done, Minthe.” 

It was a curt reply and certainly not enough to end a relationship that had spanned years with any sort of grace or dignity. Perhaps it merited the full scale tantrum that followed. Hades might have deserved Minthe’s wrath but his office certainly didn’t. She shattered two panes of glass in the broad floor to ceiling windows. And, of course, all the artifacts within her reach found new forms as artistically scattered broken rubble on the floor. As such, it wasn’t until much later in the day when he was shuffling through the ruin she’d left in her furious wake that he picked up the crumpled ball of the Sunday newspaper and read the scandal sheet, straight through. Twice. He _may_ have glanced at page Gamma a few times more.

He left quickly after that. His office certainly could not handle a second eruption on this day. Given the conveniently shattered windows, his escape from the office was quick. But, Hades was not pleased with his options. While his realm was all his and, in his own opinion, far superior to Olympus, as King, there was nowhere in the underworld that he could go without being noticed. And today he did not want to draw attention of any sort. 

It is foolish to rely too much on the legends of mortals with regards to the day-to-day existence of the gods. Mankind’s tales would claim Hades rarely left his own realm and, while that was not entirely untrue, he did venture out far more than mortals would have ever given him credit for. It was just, on the mortal plane, he could go about unseen. It was yet another name he could have added to his business card had it not already been so cluttered with titles: the Unseen One. 

On this day, it was a good trick to have both for his own purpose and for the well-being of any that happened to pass by. If they could have seen him, the cold wrath brewing inside him might have frozen them to their path. Or the burning intensity of his glowing red eyes might have ended, prematurely, a shepherd or two. He was a harrowing sight to behold.

What directed his path to a doorless greenhouse on the hills outside Sicily neither the gods nor man could truly say but it was there that he found Persephone and it was there that he held a long and lonely vigil just beyond her manicured prison. 

It was not easy for him to see her. And it had not been his resolve to find her. But once he had, he could not leave. 

He had no chance for escape.

Although he knew without a doubt Minthe was not his future, he had not concluded that Persephone could be. He knew that she should _not_ be.

He should not go to her. She was so young. Centuries...no, millenia...younger than him.

He should not go to her. She was so good. So warm. So full of life.

He should not go to her. For this would be an act of war and Demeter would not take kindly to his interference. As it stood, she could barely tolerate him. If he aligned himself with her daughter? The following scene would not be pretty.

He should not go to her. For he was _Hades_. Not good enough. He was cold and dark and broken. She deserved so much more than him.

As he composed his lists of reasons, he stalked around the regal greenhouse. Windows and windows and windows. There was not a door to be found. While he chanted to himself a litany of excuses, he could not help but see that inside this walled garden, Persephone was not good or warm or full of life.

Her normally vibrant pink skin looked wan. The ground around her was turning shades that belonged in the darkest corners of the underworld not under the feet of a fertility goddess. Even her hair — normally an endless source of blossoms and petals — seemed tangled and knotted. The wealth of sadness on her face made Hades ache; it made him want to tear the earth apart, to pull her to him, and to never let her go. 

He should not go to her. If nothing more than it was clear to him now that she had already endured the attentions of one god against her own wishes. And who was he to force her to do the same again? 

He should not go to her but he could not bear to leave.

Two whole days and two whole nights he stood outside her greenhouse. He watched as her mother and her dryads would come and go. All were at a loss as to how to calm the grieving goddess and none sought to stay with her for long. He watched as she paced and cried and cried and cried.

And he watched as she stopped.

She dropped to her knees and she struck the ground. Twice. Had he not been waiting, he’d have still come but, as it was, her call was answered in the blink of an eye. One moment Persephone was kneeling on the ground and the next moment she was feet off it, held in the strong and dark embrace of the, as yet, unseen King of the Dead. 

Hades pulled her into his arms and cradled her tiny frame against his chest. He buried his face in her tangled locks and breathed in the earthy, floral scent that was all her. All his should nots were vanquished. She was his if she’d have him. He was hers even if she wouldn’t.


	3. Persephone: Handsy

It should have been terrifying. One moment she was all alone — crouched on the ground — and the next she was suspended in the air. It was a little concerning that she could not see him but that didn’t stop the rush of contentment that came when she felt Hades wrap himself around her. She knew, instinctively, it was him. Others always characterized Hades as cold but that simply wasn’t true. The underworld was freezing but Hades burned hot in comparison. He smelled like smoke and stone and he felt like...hope.

“You called?” A voice husky from disused whispered into her hair and she laughed then. It was a musical laugh edged only slightly by the stress of a crying jag that had lasted days.

“You answered,” she replied. Her voice was frayed too. She pushed her hand into the nothingness in front of her and felt the solid wall of his chest. “Are you here? Why...why can’t I see you?”

“Perk of the job,” Hades replied. “And a precaution.” He moved her then. His long strides brought them to the center of her bower. The curtain of the willow’s branches closed around them and Hades let Persephone slide back down his length so her feet rested on the soft ground. He did not release her from the circle of his arms however and Persephone was never so grateful for the solace of physical contact. 

She squinted and thought she could just make out the bluish outline of the god in front of her. “Are you hiding from me? Or hiding your affiliation with me?” As soon as she let fly the questions, she regretted them. She wasn’t sure she could handle his answer if it was an affirmative. 

Silence filled the space and her inability to read his body language made the wait so much worse. She braced herself. He must have felt her stiffen for his hold on her tightened and one, large comforting hand slowly ran up her spine as if he was trying to press some calm back into her. As with all things Hades, this method was far better than it had any right to be. She felt absolutely liquid in his embrace.

“This is your mother’s home.”

His rich baritone had made that a statement of fact but Persephone chose to respond as if it was a question. She nodded. “In part. This garden is mine.”

“At her behest?” Another magenta head bob greeted this question.

“And here I am, uninvited, embracing her daughter in her home. This precaution is not about my concern over an affiliation with you, precious. But your mother…”

“Is going to be impossible,” Persephone finished with a sigh. He called her _precious_ and she was not sure what to do with that casual endearment. She’d dwell on it properly later. In the meantime, if he wasn’t going to show himself, she’d have to take matters into her own hands. Literally. She reached up and let her hands wander up his torso until she got to what was surely his neck. Parting ways her hands traced out to the edge of his shoulders and back. She could feel his breath hitch and it gave her the confidence to run them up further. His chin was rough as if he had not shaved in a couple days. Her fingers danced across his firm lips and felt the warmth of his breath, the sharpness of his nose before they plunged into his hair. She had to stand on her tip toes to do this but it wasn’t a challenge with the solidness of his body supporting her own. Though she could not see him, tracing his height allowed her to imagine him standing in front of her. She closed her eyes and let her hands and mind fill in what her senses could not. Her hands fell back so that they rested around his neck in a loose hug. She was sick of crying so she did her best not to let her tears well up again as she spoke. “You know, she hasn’t said all of two words to me since we got back. My mother...”

Hades harumphed and his hand ran back down her spine. Taking her cues from him, Persephone let her hands wander back to his shoulders. She leaned forward and let her cheek rest against him. His flintly scent was as calming to her as his continual slow back rub. Her next words came out muddled as they were spoken directly into his chest. “I think she’s upset with me. Disappointed. I’ve failed at…”

“You have NOT failed.” Hades cut in. His voice fractured into a growl as he continued. “You’ve just been...delayed...by that no good asshat and that’s not on you.” Persephone sensed that his eyes had flashed red for the last bit. His whole body tensed as if he was readying for a strike. She curled into him further and ran her own hands up and down his spine mirroring his hold.

An inappropriately timed giggle burst out of her causing Hades to still. “Sorry. It’s just I realized that, though no one can see you, they certainly can see me. If my mother’s dryads wander this way to check in on me again, it will look as if I’ve truly lost it. Here I am standing alone in the middle of a garden petting the air in front of me.” She didn’t stop but her tone became more serious as she continued. “I have failed. Mother will never let me finish school now even if I could find a way to pay for it without Hestia’s scholarship. I don’t think she’s ever going to let me leave this greenhouse without an army at my back.”

“And is that what you’d like, Persephone? Would you like an army of guards at your back?”

He had her at such a disadvantage today. All her emotions and thoughts ran across her face like a reflection in a glassy pond and she couldn’t even gauge his by his body language. She did her best to regain some control by burying her face into his chest again. 

After a long moment, she earnestly said, “I don’t know but I’d like to find out. I think, mostly, I don’t want to be trapped here for the rest of time.”

He did release her then; before she had time to react, he’d moved around her. His hands had wrapped themselves into her tangled mess of hair and she felt him lift the great weight of it off her head. She heard the soft ‘schtk’ of a blade and then pounds and pounds of tangled pink hair turned to blossoms and carpeted the ground around her. 

“That can be arranged, you know. I’m fairly good at springing you out of a tangle.”

She would have launched herself into his arms if she could see him. Since she couldn’t, she simply burst into tears. Again.


	4. Hades: Salty

Persephone hated long hair. It was beautiful to be sure but it was heavy and it dragged across the ground and this was one of the first things Hades knew about her. He _thought_ he knew about her. It had been an impulse to cut it and, now, he regretted it immensely.

He had needed a distraction. He had needed to do something to keep his mind and his increasingly _inspired_ body from her roving hands and soft, lush curves. And he had just wanted to help her. If he was being brutally honest with himself, he did it because he also wanted to impress her. 

“I’m sorry. Please...” He felt powerless standing in front of the sniffling pink goddess. Her hair shifted to blossoms and littered the ground around them. He reached toward her until he remembered she could not see him. He paused, unsure of his reception. “Persephone? I…”

She tackled him then. She must have located him by the sound of his voice. For such a little thing, the full, flying weight of her, unexpected as it was, took him crashing into the gound. But that didn’t slow her. In under half a second, she was straddled over his chest pinning him to the earth. Her hands flew to his face and traced up his chin to his lips and then they were gone — replaced by her own lips. 

He was unprepared for the onslaught. He had thought he was going to be groveling at her feet, begging her forgiveness for the swift and impromptu haircut. Instead, he was on his back, receiving one of the most delicious kisses he’d ever received in his long, long, long immortal life. 

Whenever Hades had contemplated a kiss from Persephone (and he had spent a great deal of time contemplating much more than that of late), he had thought he’d be fully in charge of it. He figured she’d be timid and taste like sugar or strawberries or something rich and pink; his imaginings always ended with him feeling like an absolute monster. After all, he had lists and lists of reasons why he ought to run far, far away from this particular goddess and he worked hard not to contemplate his lists of why tangling himself up with Persephone would be so very, very good. 

But not a one of those lists mattered in the moment.

This kiss was nothing like what he had expected. It was fierce and passionate. Her recent tears might be the culprit but Persephone tasted of salt. And all the regret he’d dredged up for the haircut? For pursuing the sweet, naive goddess? It was washed away in the glory of that one kiss. His hands came up to grip her waist and he leaned up to capture her lips a second time. Gods, he wanted more of her. Mindful of how weird Persephone must look making out with an invisble person, he rolled them both so that she was pressed into the pink flowers and he could read her face once again. 

Her now much shorter hair fanned out beneath her on the ground. She kept her eyes closed but a smug smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Hades found he wanted to devour that smile but he held himself back and merely stole another quick kiss. And then two. A third. He paused with his lips still hovering a mere breath away from hers. “You’re not mad at me?”

She shook her head but from his perch above her, Hades felt the movement with his whole body. 

“You’ll have to learn the difference between happy crying and unhappy crying if you’re going to spend time around me.”

“Happy crying? Is that a thing?”

“It is, oh King of the Underworld.” Her eyes popped open and he watched her trying to see him through the glamour that kept him unseen in the modern world. 

He pressed his hand over her eyes to hold them closed. “You’re going to strain your eyes. Quit trying to see me.” He shifted slightly and pressed his lips to the fluttering pulse at her neck.

She huffed and then coiled into him. She clearly like kisses running up her pulse point so he obliged her with more. Trusting him, she closed her eyes again. “This isn’t exactly fair. I can’t see you. I can’t read your facial expressions.”

It was a shame that Hades’ grin was hidden by his glamour because it was rare and truly something to behold. “Well, precious. _You’ll_ have to learn that I have no desire to curb my power for some misguided concept of fairness. Besides, we were just about to discuss how we are going to lie, cheat, and steal a way out of this greenhouse of yours.”

He really did have her at a disadvantage. Her face was like a glass window. He watched as her emotions shifted. Hope and fear and a slight concern danced across her expression. “I don’t want to hurt her. Mother, I mean. I just…”

“Need some time away?”

Another nod. This one was more timid than the last, more tied down by concern, fear, and guilt.

Hades slid his arms behind her back and pulled them both up. He rested his back against the great willow tree they’d been hiding under and tucked her across his lap so that she could feel exactly where he was and he could keep stealing half his answers from her expressive features.

“I can give you some time but it would be easier if you could find a way out of this fortress of a building. The number of nymphs and dryads that are bounding around here will not make it easy for me to just whisk you away.”

“Oh! That reminds me to ask...how exactly did you get in here?”

“I can go anywhere that I am called.”

“Do you have to go?” Persephone asked. A weird darkness settled into her cheeks. 

Whatever emotion _that_ had heralded was gone nearly as soon as it had darkened her face so Hades made quick work of his own reply. “I do not have any such constraints and I am rarely called. It seems I have a rather dire reputation in the mortal realms and I don’t particularly care to garner popularity in Olympus.”

“But you came for me.”

_I would always come for you._ Hades nearly let slip far more than he was ready to concede. Having her in his arms, while the sharp, salty taste of her kisses lingered on his lips was trying his self-control. Then again, Persephone always tried his self-control. She had from the very moment she’d waltzed by him in Olympus.

“As you see. Or don’t see, rather. Yes. I came. For you.” As responses go, it could have been _more_ awkward but even Hades was struggling to see how. He didn’t regret provoking another giggle from the goddess in his arms thus his embarassment was rapidly assuaged.

“Thank you,” Persephone spoke this so softly Hades was certain he felt those two words more than he actually heard them. Her tone lifted as she pulled them both back to their original conversation. “I can get out but I am not sure if that will help you. Anywhere I go beyond these walls, I’m required to go with a host of dryads or nymphs. Mother isn’t very trusting and I can’t say my recent return from Olympus will have helped that. It’ll be me plus fifteen at least.”

“And where would you go?”

“In the mortal realms? Oh...if I am with nymphs, we might go out to the hills to pick flowers. Or to the grove for berries. The dryads are a little less likely to wander all that far.”

“And is your mother with you?”

Persephone winced. “Not always. No. But, again, with my recent return...I don’t know. She might be feeling particularly protective.”

Hades was feeling more than particularly protective too but Persephone didn’t need to know that. Apollo would though—as soon as Hades could get his hands on him. But Demeter’s protective nature was challenging at the best of times and Hades would really rather not start a battle with her. 

Persephone continued, “...I bet I can tell her that I need to go out to feel better. That wouldn’t even be a lie! I genuinely don’t want to cry any more!“

“No more crying then? Even happy tears?”

Persephone punched his arm. Hard. Hades captured her offending hand and wrapped it in his own.

He ran his thumb back and forth over her knuckles and gave the most basic of instruction. “Next time you are out with your nymphs and dryads, see if you can make an excuse to get a little further away and then call me.”

“The same way?” Persephone thought about this very simple plan for a moment and then a cheeky grin shone across her face. “Okay, sir. You’re the boss!”

“Right now, I am definitely not that!” Hades replied and fully taking leave from his professional responsibilities, he pressed Persephone back into the willow with a leisurely kiss.


	5. Persephone: Deceit

Demeter wasn’t a villain in Persephone’s story. Not exactly. She was the mother who nurtured and cultivated and watched. She was certainly loving in her own way. But Persephone wasn’t a plant and all that grooming and pruning and plucking which might help a garden grow robust and beautiful was not helping her. 

In all her studies, in all the heroic tales she’d poured over as a lonely youth, she come to realize that heroes rarely if ever had mothers. At least not _living_ mothers who hovere, nurtured, and _watched_. Now, granted, a good lot of the heroic sort were offspring of Zeus’s affairs and all his mortal loves just didn’t seem to last long once Hera heard tell of them so, again, maybe it wasn’t exactly the not having mothers thing that led to being heroic and having grand adventure. There were clearly other things weighing in on the heroic scales but…

Persephone wanted to do the things no one else had done. 

She wanted a grand adventure that the world would whisper about around the fireside for millenia. 

She wanted to find a dark path, far from her mother’s cultivated fields, far from the lithe and fetching dryads and nymphs who’d hold her hands and braid her hair and report her ever action right back to her mother. 

And ever since she’d wandered around Hades dark home...

Persephone _wanted_.

She should have known that it would not be easy though. Her mother was predictable. Perhaps it was the nature of her divinity...a goddess of crops kept to a schedule: planting, cultivating, harvesting and planting again. It was a cycle that never stopped and Demeter _never_ stopped. 

“Are you feeling better, my little barley bristle?” Her mother cooed. Persephone heaved a long sigh and tried her very best to look both ‘better’ and content with her mother’s presence.

Green hands cupped her rosy cheeks and she looked up into her mother’s eyes. For all her frustration, Persephone knew that her mother meant well but she was sick of intentions of goodwill and she was ready for something else. Something new...

A memory of lips trailing up her neck caused her to shiver and she looked away from her mother. It was difficult to think of _him_ and to maintain a blasé conversation with Demeter at the same time. 

Persephone was not terribly good at lying but that was the task Hades had left her with. There was a hill not far from her bower where the underworld’s boundary with the mortal plane was thin. She needed to get there which meant she needed to convince her insanely protective mother that after days of constant crying, all she really wanted to do was the very thing she’d spend years grumbling and complaining about: a ‘playdate’ with the nymphs.

“I’m not,” Persephone started before realizing how terribly blunt that was. “Er...I’m not _not_ better. I just…” At a loss for how to manage this little fib without being totally obvious, Persephone huffed a great sigh and, that, more than anything sold the next bit to her mother. “I just want to feel a little normal?” Lack of eye contact was definitely making this easier! “I mean...maybe Anthousa and Juniper could take me out to...”

Her mother’s hands drifted to her forehead as she frowned down at her diminutive daughter. “You don’t feel like you have a fever. Have you had anything to eat? I know you haven’t been sleeping well.” 

Persephone found it was far easier to spit out a blatant lie when she wasn’t look directly into the inky eyes of her mother. “It would be nice to get out. Pick some flowers? Feel the breeze. That’s all.”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed but, ultimately, Demeter wanted to see her daughter flourish. Granted, she wanted that to happen in a manner that she controlled and this _suggestion_ of a meander with the nymphs was not her idea. Demeter harrumphed. It wasn’t her idea but it did come right out of her playbook and Persephone truly had been having a hard time of it. Perhaps…

“You’ll take seven of the dryads too. And don’t go far. You have been away from home for so very long, dearest. I suspect you have forgotten some of the dangers…”

Her mother started listing off the myriad ways that Persephone could find herself overburdened while exploring the mortal plane but Persephone was adept at tuning this particular lecture out. A thrill sizzled up her spine. She’d done it!

And, oh, it was a sight to behold. By the time her mother had finished with her retinue, she had fourteen nymphs and twelve dryads plodding after her through the shrubby hills of the countryside. The nymphs’ had skin the color of the flowers they’d pick: periwinkle and indigo, lavender and deep, deep violet. The dryads’ earthy tones allowed them to blend into the scenery as they moved slowly alongside their exuberant companions. One might assume that with twenty-six watchers, Persephone’s ability to cut loose was getting more and more difficult but years of dealing with her mother’s minions gave her a deep understanding of their weaknesses. Dryads were incredibly slow and the flower nymphs were as inconstant as petals on a mercurial breeze. She kept a swift pace forward with the nymphs for a solid hour so that the dryads were left at least a hill or two behind them and then she challenged them all to a contest.

No nymph would willingly forego a contest after all. 

“Oh no, Agata. We’re not seeing who can pick the _most_ flowers,” Persephone chided. “We’re seeing who can find the most unusual.”

The eyes of the nymphs lit up like sparkling gems. Competition spurred them on and Persephone soon found herself alone wandering further into a grove rumored to have a most frail boundary with the underworld.

Though she wasn’t actually focused on her duplicitous challenge, she did stop to take a closer look at a lonely lily. Its petals were streaked an unusually vibrant blue. It reminded her of stone and smoke and her heart skipped a beat. She was just reaching out a hand to pluck it when a deep voice pulled her from her momentary distraction.

“A flower goddess picking flowers on the hillside. I’d say you were being predictable, Kore, but I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Persephone spun around searching for the beloved voice only to find an empty grove. “Where are you?” She asked the air.

She heard a metallic click and to her astonishment Hades’ shiny black car shimmered into view just in front of her. She startled and jumped back. “Hades?” His invisibility was still unnerving but she felt the press of a warm hand on her back, the brush of firm lips across her cheek, and her whole body relaxed. She knew his touch and without further questions, she offered the empty air around her a sweet smile before stepping into the passenger side of the dark vehicle. 

The loud roar of the engine shocked a charm of little brown finches into a squawking and harried flight and then a calm settled over the nearly empty grove once again. Behind the dense cover of the trees, a shepherd and a swineherd stood speechless. They had been breaking their morning fast when an otherworldly maiden had wandered into the grove and, as most mortals do, their brief encounter with the gods had left them feeling shaken. They left their respective animals in the grove for the day and beat a swift retreat to the local tavern. Eyewitness accounts of the gods are definitely easier to tell with a fermented beverage or two in hand.


End file.
